"Notoriety is often mistaken for fame.” This is a great quote from the Aesop's fable about the dog with a bell on its collar. The fable goes something like this: "There was once a Dog who used to snap at people and bite them without any provocation, and who was a great nuisance to every one who came to his master's house. So his master fastened a bell round his neck to warn people of his presence. The Dog was very proud of the bell, and strutted about tinkling it with immense satisfaction. But an old dog came up to him and said, "The fewer airs you give yourself the better, my friend. You don't think, do you, that your bell was given you as a reward of merit? On the contrary, it is a badge of disgrace." The moral of the story is my quote! "Notoriety is often mistaken for fame." There are so many examples of this moral that it is hard to just pick one as an example. Instead, I'll give you a few different examples from different walks of life.
Let's start at the top of the proverbial food chain here and look at our next batch of so-called political leaders. On the democratic side, we have Hillary Rodham Clinton. Here is a woman, who in my mind, is a criminal and a liar. Even so, in some polls about 44% of the population want her to be our next president. My God! Our president should be someone that is not under investigation by the FBI for illegal actions. This woman has a shady past and many policy and procedural mistakes under her belt. She has been caught lying to the press and the people, and she compounds it by lying to cover up those lies. All of you know what I am talking about too... And yet, there she is. Whitewater, Travel-gate, Benghazi, sending classified material over private email servers, rumors of foul play after people with close ties to her end up dead. Any one of those should be enough to disqualify her. Yet there she is. And people are willing to vote for her! This is the perfect example of notoriety being mistaken for fame. Next, on the Republican side, we have Donald Trump. There is nothing dishonest about Donald Trump that I know of. He does have a reputation for flying off the handle and saying bombastic, hurtful things. Personally, I can't see how this is helping him in the race for the presidency. Even so, he too, has gotten a 44% approval rating in some of the polls. While I understand that a lot of what he is being accused of is blown out of proportion by the media (liberals can be nasty, too), there are just too many documented cases of the Donald being downright insulting to people he disagrees with for it to all be hype. Again, his notoriety is being mistaken for fame. Meanwhile, there is a third candidate in the race who has a solid track record of public service and has an actual plan to improve the economy... and yet he gets very little press. Gary Johnson, and his running mate, Bill Weld were both successful, scandal-less governors, who are currently garnering only 12% of the vote. Neither one of these two men are famous... but they don't have any notoriety either! Closer to home, I think we all know someone who does things that are sometimes reprehensible yet are well liked among their group of friends. I will not mention any stories here. In general, many of the people who read this blog would likely be able to pick out who I am talking about, whether I chose to speak about someone from New Jersey or here in New Hampshire. Remember, you don't need to kill someone to be notorious. At my level, I think it would be hard to call anyone I know famous. So let's just lean toward notorious and popular. Think of the people around you who are popular. Do all of them deserve to be so? I think we can all think of at least one or two people who would get a resounding no answer to that question. Finally, let's take a look at our heroes on TV and in the papers. We have football players who have been assaulting people, singers who seem to be known more for what parts of their bodies they are showing off on twitter rather than for their songs, and actors who are best know for their drug binges and alcoholic antics. Think people, don't mistake notoriety for fame. They are not the same thing, and I think our culture is poorer for the blindness to notoriety. There are no bells for people unfortunately, so stay on your guard.
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